There was something incredibly liberating about visiting the Tate as a teenager. I grew up in a small town and some of my only sources on contemporary art and culture were The Face and a pamphlet called the Art Quarterly, produced by Habitat. My experience of art in a state school had been extremely negative and damaging. At the Tate I realised that there was a chasm between what I was being taught and what I was seeing with my own eyes. I remember seeing Jeff Koons's floating basketballs, and a nightclub installation by Georgina Starr. I had no idea what any of it meant cerebrally, but the visceral, instinctive immediacy excited me, provoking questions that seemed to go beyond anything anyone was telling me, like a secret I had to get to the bottom of.

•Andrew Palmer was born in Salisbury in 1979. He is represented by Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich. His work will be in Araby at Moot Gallery, Nottingham, from 17 September to 11 October.